when it comes to money, choose your friends wisely

[Illusional]

alright, so everyone knows that i love to drink and i love to drink often. so this past weekend we had a barbq and my friends place and we were all parked in this garage. one of our friends decided to leave so i told me friend1 to move my car. friend2 has this father's truck and was parked right next to me. of course friend1 has to bang friend2 father's car with my car and not notice anything till the next day.

to sum it up, my friend2 father is very upset. his truck is a 91 i think, but still runs good with only 25,000 miles. now we didn't an estimate yet, however i'm guessing that the truck will cost roughly 2-3000. mines, i dont' really care about for now because that is my car and my friend banged it, so what. my friend's father doen't think the same.... telling my friend2 that he will call the insurance company if it comes down to that to get hsi car fixed... alright, so friend1 agrees to fix his car, yet being his car is so old he believes that it's not worth fixing. friend2 fathers still wants the car so here is where i am stuck. the father says because it was MY car, reguardless if i was the driver, my insurance will have to fork out the money..

i didn't get in contact with my insurance yet, but i want to know the facts before i get the details. i know if they fix the car, my insurance will go up which sucks for me. if we give all the money to fix the old truck, my friend1 loses out. if we go to the insurance company, the father might only get the blue book value, or whatever agreement between the insurance decides. eather which way, i think that someone will lose in this.... i hate being stuck in these sort of situations. thoughts??

raverboy

[King Zarathu]

That sucks. I used to share a bank account with Mike, until recently. Changed that. ^_^

[misombra]

that sucks raverboy. but he's right, since it was your car your insurance will probably have to pay for it. you can try to collect from your friend for the deductibles though...

[vashti]

Friend 1 should fix the car, and he should leave your insurance company out of it, even if he has to pay out of pocket, in my opinion.

[Gigabitch]

What's the thing worth? If it would cost less than repairing it to offer him blue book value for it, maybe you should try to buy it from him, then sell it to somebody who doesn't care if it's a bit wrinkly.

[Rosebud]

I agree with Vash. And yes your insurance would have to pay for it, but the fact that a police report was not filed when it happened could affect your insurance company oing something. They have to be able to verify that's what happened for them to pay for it, if there's no actual proof....they won't pay. And if his car is a 91 and the damage is what you say, it could be totalled. Even though it has low miles, every year a vehilce depreciates quite a bit. You should check the blue book price and see what's it worth and go from there. If it's totalled, his insurance would pay it (I think, that's how it worked on mine).

[Illusional]

alright, so here's the deal... so far... i talked to my insurance company today, only saying "what if... this happened??" haha but they are smarter than that. so well my insurance agent gave me a few details about what could possibly happen.

for one, if we go through the insurance agent, they will most likely pay. HOWEVER as most of you stated, they will only pay the value of the car, reguardless of the miles. now here is the catch, because they will pay the entire value of the car, they will claim the car as being a wreck, and they will take the car... what kinda deal is that? well i dunno. if he friend2 father decides to keep the car, they will pay him the value of the car and make him sign some legal bullshit. that is that, he will have to fork over the rest of the cash on his own. also my insurance will go up. sucks for me.

alright, so there is an alternative in which almost everyone can win. the agent that i talked to, good thing is that he didn't report anything yet. also he has a "friend" that does side jobs for this particular occasion and at a lesser cost. that way mostly his friend and the person who pays for the insurance will benefit.. mainly me. as for as any estimates, we are planning them for this weekend, but i'm sure they will be a bit expensive.

also so friend1 doesn't look bad, he is willing to pay for this accident, but he also feels that paying a value for more than the car is worth is ridiculous. all in all, time will tell the outcome.

SEE, we need a bitching section ah?

raverboy

[vashti]

I think blue book value is the MINIMUM a car is worth. It is not gospel, and certainly a car with such low miles is worth more than blue book.

[Rosebud]

Blue book takes the miles in perspective which is more than what any insurance company would do, because they mostly go by the year and the depreciation value.

[vashti]

Bah! You are probably right rosebud, but I still think when someone wants to keep their car, the person responsible for the damage should make it right. 25,000 miles is so low, there is no way you'd be able to buy a comparable car based on blue book value.

[Rosebud]

I completely agree with you! Although, something like that is probably more sentimental than monetary. In any case, the father shouln't be responsible for anything, and it should be up to the friend that hit the car in the first place to make things right no matter what it is.

[Gigabitch]

...and then there's the fact that if you're that sentimentally attached to an old truck, you shouldn't let your young son drive it to parties. Shit happens. The idea of spending 2-3 thousand dollars fixing a truck that isn't even worth that much is unreasonable.

Illusional, I hope you never hand your keys off to someone else again. This situation really sucks and I'm sorry it's happening to you.

[Illusional]

giga.... i love to learn things the hard way... haha of course i will still let my friends drive my car, not this friend. but i know in the future, at some point, my friend will either need to drive me home or probably something along the line will come up.

rosebud... you're missing the father of friend2 won't pay for anything. however friend1 can't even afford to fix his own car which recently broke down. due to family issues, money is extremely tight in his situation.

raverboy